Participant or victim?

While my goal was to read 3 books over Christmas Break, I only got through one - Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Great book. It's a personal account of the experience of trying to make his life into an interesting enough story to make a movie about, since he had movie people trying to do exactly that. In that process, he explores through writing the idea that life is exactly like story and that we should live accordingly. (To see a thousand times better description of the book, see http://donmilleris.com/books)

I loved the book and highly recommend it. I've got 3 pages of notes over the book that I really want to explore on this blog periodically. Tonight I begin that process. My commentary will neither require previous reading of the text nor ruin the book if you plan on reading it.

Quoting Miller on p. 58: "I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given - it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral. . .

I hear it often said or see it written that Americans have an entitlement problem. We teachers especially love to complain about the comfort and attention our students constantly feel entitled to. Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is that no one sees it in themselves. No one wants to believe that they have become entitled, but most of us have become so used to the magnificent that it's become something we feel we deserve. "I deserve a job. I deserve a working vehicle. I deserve to be left alone right now. My wife should want to make me supper tonight, and my internet better not be down. I don't deserve to get sick - I should be alive and well each and every morning, and my family should anticipate all of my moods and needs and act accordingly." Honestly, when any of this isn't true, how many of us complain? Or perhaps a better question, how much of this are we in awe of on a daily basis when it is true?

Somewhere along the line we began to feel entitled to the sun rising and entitled to the miracle of family members who love us. Miller offers a theory on p. 59:

"I've wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don't want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don't want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn't remarkable, then we don't have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants."

Complaining is so much easier than facing conflict with courage. Being a victim is so much easier than being grateful. So I think there is some truth to Miller's words. When given a gift, whether asked for or not, most of us feel like we need to use it. We don't want to waste the gift. Heck, give me the gift of free food, whether I like it or not, and I'm going to stuff myself past gluttonous proportions just because I don't want to waste the chance at free food.

If I don't see each day as a gift, I don't have to approach my time in that manner, though. If I don't see each second with my spouse as a gift, I can carelessly cast away time together guilt-free. And when things go wrong, I can be a victim. It's a matter of perspective. Either I'm lucky to be alive and lucky to be where I am, flawed as I might think it is; or I wake up believing I deserve better in this land of random chance.

Only one of those two perspectives will lead me towards joy. . .